


from each last shore

by suspectmind



Category: Warframe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-04 07:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13359630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suspectmind/pseuds/suspectmind
Summary: "for love beginning means return/ seas who could sing so deep and strong/ one querying wave will whitely yearn/ from each last shore and home young" - love is the every only god, e.e. cummingsMisc. stories ft Kore and Judge!! For my GF





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartslogos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/gifts).



“I can’t believe Midas hasn’t choked on one of these things yet,” 

Kore’s voice echoes from the console area, where she’s transferring Judge’s many, many ayatan stars into crates to transfer into the cradle room at the back of his ship. Even after attaching several blues and yellows to his vast collections of kinetic sculptures, there’s still too many to safely keep on board. “This is hell, Judge.”

Judge rubs his eyes blearily. “Thank you for helping me, Kore.” His eyes sting from staring at collection of duplicate mods for the past 40 minutes. Or the lack of sleep. “And you’re free to use my foundry for whatever number of experiments you want.”

“You’re damn right.” He hears her gently admonish his bear-sized kubrow, then the clatter of metal on metal. “What do you want me to do with the actual sculptures?”

“I’m going to give them to Maroo.” When did he even get all these Pressure Points? “Unless you want to take some.”

“Can I take Midas instead?”

He sells what he has gathered on the market and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. He’ll do the rest later. “Kore, I only have two functioning companions.”

“I’d take Cadmus with me, but he’d miss annoying Ugly. And I’m not taking your kavat because I only have room for one Cosmic Terror on my ship.” Her voice is right beside him and he looks up from his seat on the floor. She has one crate balanced in her arms and peers at him through a Sah sculpture. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

She rolls her eyes. “Go lie down or something. I don’t want you getting mad at me because you thought you hallucinated wanting to clean up your ship.” Midas trots in behind her with a crate balanced carefully on his back. Kore has been working marvels with his kubrow, even if Midas himself doesn’t know his own strength.

“I’ll lie down after I go through my relics.” Judge says.

“Scylla, dim the lights.” Kore says, effectively ignoring him. “Judge is going to take a nap.”

“Yes, Oper-r-rator Persephone.” Judge’s orbiter walls shift from fair green to a darker teal, and his lights dull to a cool blue.

“This is my ship,” Judge protests weakly. Kore gives him a look before rounding the corner. The blue hue hits the back of her head and the collar of her hood briefly before she disappears behind the door to the cradle. They shift close, and all that’s left is the quiet hum of the engines.

He’s still stinging a bit from the embarrassment of admitting just how bad his ship had gotten in the past few—-months? Years? He’s almost certain he woke up collecting things.

_“The trick is,” Kore had told him after he’d curled up against Valencia on her orbiter. “To only keep what makes you happy. Are you going to use these noggles? This array of broken plastids? This moa head?”_

She was trying to keep things light. And Judge tries not to be thick at the best of times. He knew how ‘my Warframe is haunted’ sounded. He also knows Kore, and he knows how low her tolerance for bullshit is. He also knows, fortunately, that she loves him, somehow 

_She’d touched his cheek, briefly, warily, and said, “It’s void sickness, fool. You did it to yourself.”_  

He smiled at the memory. Leave it to Kore to uncloud his head, like reaching in and shaking something loose. She’d kept an Oberon noggle for her trouble. He wishes he could give her something better. He feels the lights flicker before he sees them and looks away instinctively.

“Hey, kiddo.”

His double’s appearances are becoming less and less frequent. With Kore’s counselling, he’d noticed that the voice echoed in his own head rather than where he imagined the source of it to be. He’d filled in the blanks himself. There wasn’t any anti-toxins he could take for this kind of poisoning. The less attention he gives, the more he can centre himself.

“I see you brought the _spring_ on board,”

And Judge, despite himself, can’t _not_ look up at that. He watches his own face smile at him.

“ _That_ got your attention.” the void wraith says, eyes glittering. “It’s nice to have your own personal springtime isn’t it? Saryns always smell like petrichor, somehow.”

Judge can’t seem to keep his eyes off the figure, as it becomes more and more solid with each step through the orbiter. It glances around, as if appraising the newfound space the missing argon pegmatite had left behind. “It’s a pity she’s come in to shift everything around. I did like my winters.”

Judge feels his heart in his throat as the ramp draws open and the light spills in. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t moved and the ramp only reacts to movement. He doesn’t follow his double up to the navigation area. He tries to concentrate on hearing—actually physically hearing his footsteps. If can’t actually hear them, they’re not real. Kore had said—-Kore had said the only way to know is to believe. He’s not the hallucination. He tries not to hear the footsteps.

He heaves a sigh when a luminous kavat saunters down the ramp. He puts a hand on his throat and stifles a sob. “Handsome, I have never been so happy to see you.” The kavat flicks her tail and bears her mismatched teeth in disgust. He leans in to pet her soft fur, earning him an annoyed yowl. Handsome knows that something’s going on with him, otherwise the sleeve of his suit would need to be replaced again.

Either that or she’s still drowsy from snoozing on the codex station the entire day.

The doors shift open and Kore appears again. She grimaces at Handsome. “Thought _you’d_ gotten yourself jammed in the trash compactor again.” she says.

Handsome hisses.

“Likewise, _Ugly_.” She turns to Judge, and he must still look upset because her grimace doesn’t soften. Kore’s stare always leaves him feeling helpless and wired at the same time. “I’m going back to my ship to rest. Night-cycle started two hours ago, so Scylla’s staying dim for the next 7 or so hours.” She hesitates before approaching him, and Judge holds his breath.

She looks like she’s thinking about touching him, but doesn’t. “I’ll be back.” She says.

Judge nods. “I know.” He smiles despite the nerves around his throat. Kore makes a show of narrowing her eyes in suspicion. It makes him feel better. 

“Don’t put your relics up without me. I still don’t have Red Veil tributes and I’m tired of spending standing on a pack of Liths I already have.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kore makes a disgusted noise. “Baro Ki’Teer and his prisma garbage.”
> 
> “I’d need more ducats, though.”
> 
> “Baro Ki’Teer and his ducats.”

Sleep doesn’t come, and Handsome starts getting restless because her schedule doesn’t change to suit Judge. He buries his faces in Midas’s fur, but her yowls start to get louder and louder. He rubs his eyes and gets up. He has a freight train full of ayatan sculptures to get rid of, and Handsome isn’t going to let up until she’s tired or bored. He yawns and hisses when his lip tears.

“Scylla, what’s our present location?” He rubs at the cut. 

“We are cu-r-r-r-rently in orbit with Phobos, Operator.”

“Send missive; Persephone.” He says. “‘Gone home, getting endo.’ Take us to Earth.”

“Yes, Operator.”

—

Judge can’t see Maroo’s face, but he can imagine it by the way she’s stilled all over. She clears her throat. “Sorry, tin-stuff, can you repeat that? How many statues do you have for me?”

Mag’s voice modulator is static-y, almost reverberating and undoubtedly feminine. “87.”

Maroo breaks into the delighted snorting laughter she’s known. “Void and stars, what did you do, hoard them?”

Judge bristles, but Mag stays silent. He’s very lucky there’s only a few tenno around, too busy exchanging rarities from relics to pay attention to the fuss she’s making. 

“You want me to do them one by one?” She asked, amused.

“I need them off my ship.” Mag says, and Judge regrets not picking a newer frame. His Mag’s voice modulator has always been shitty. “I don’t need endo. I need them off my ship.”

“Endo’s not the issue. I’m  _ good _ for endo. But, I know you tenno aren’t exactly welcoming to guests on board your ships. So I’m just wondering how the hell you plan to actually give me these treasures.”

Judge thinks about launching them into space instead, to save himself the hassle. It’s what Kore would have done. Why put up with painful exchanges in Maroo’s Bazaar when you have a waste compactor? 

“Hey,” Maroo interrupts his thoughts. “I’d hate to pass up on that many completed statues. Maybe you can ask one of the other tin-suits to help you out, huh?” She gestures towards the tree with her head. 

There’s a Nekros presumably finishing his business with a pink Trinity Prime underneath it. The Nekros turns to run, skip, leap up the steps to the exit, and the Trinity’s hand goes up again. From the projection, Judge can see she’s selling Lex Prime parts.

Most of the Trinity’s he’s met have been fairly approachable, filling support roles in most situations. And the sooner these statues are moved, the sooner he’ll have space to walk in his orbiter. He approaches the Trinity and opens comms, with his Mag’s voice.

“Excuse me.” he says. “I need a hand with something. Well, a pair of hands, ideally.”

The Trinity cocks her head but doesn’t say anything. Judge winces a little. It wasn’t  _ that _ bad a joke. 

“Sorry,” he says. “But I still could use some help. I just—I have a lot of sculptures on my ship—it’s the dark Liset on the rightmost platform? I sort of—let them amass and I could really use—“

“Yoo hoo!” A voice cuts into the shared comms, and Judge catches himself. An identical pink Trinity Prime steps out beside him. The Prime variants have clearer voice modulators, and this Trinity sounds very clearly amused.

“That’s a spectre.” Judge says. 

“It sure is, girly.” The tenno behind Trinity says. “Looking for something in particular? I got a Mag Prime blueprint somewhere, I think.”

“No, I’m—I need a hand, actually.”

“Or a pair of them?” 

Judge winces again. There’s definitely a fully conscious Tenno behind that Trinity.

—

She had called herself Chic and burns three more spectres to help Judge move his sculptures out of his Liset. She’d made herself very at home.

“They the last ones?” She asks from her seat on his market console. Judge’s Mag holds out the Anasa tucked under his arm.

“Thank you for your help.” he says.

“No problem, girly. Say, Hades,” she pokes the head of one of his Ember noggles. “Are you awake?"

Judge swallows. “Yes.” he says, and a million questions fly through his head.  _ Do I know you? Did we know each other? Should I switch off the voice mods? Do you want to talk? Are you like me?  _

“Ahh. Figured. Sorry if ‘girly’ was too presumptuous. Your Mag’s cute.” She hops off the counter, holding the noggle appraisingly. “Your ship…could be better.” Judge feels like his Warframe being peeled off of him. “You can give me this noggle as payment. What’s your cephalon’s name?”

“Scylla.” Judge says, swallowing every question he has.

“That’s a lovely name,” She clears her throat. “Hello, Scylla! I’m Operator Chic. Add my callsign and frequency to Hades’ contact list, if you please. We’ll be seeing more of each other.”

Scylla stammers more than usual, but Judge himself isn’t certain he wouldn’t also be tripping over his words.

—

“That is…a lot of endo.” Kore says. “How often do you fuse your mods? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. You might never have to worry about cost again.”

“You can have some. Take half, at least. That number makes my head hurt.” 

“It’s better than hitting your head off of sculptures you keep on the roof because you keep tripping over the ones at your feet.” She says. “Speaking of numbers that make your head hurt, have you checked your credits lately?

The one instant improvement was the sudden accumulation of wealth Judge had found himself accruing. Scylla themselves had balked and stammered reading out the number of zeroes. Now that he’d had all these credits however, he had no idea what to spend them on. “I guess I’ll wait until the Void Trader comes around.”

Kore makes a disgusted noise. “Baro Ki’Teer and his prisma garbage.”

“I’d need more ducats, though.”

“Baro Ki’Teer and his  _ ducats _ .”

He still has his relics to go through, and blueprints. He needs to tell Simaris to put his ‘hunt’ on hold for the next while. “Did you want to see my relics, Kore? There’s a high-risk fissure open somewhere around Neptune, too.”

“Because it went  _ so _ well last time,” Kore says. “I’ll take a look. Who are you bringing?”

“Inaros.” Kore grins at him, and his heart skips before he remembers. “There’s no Archwing involved. Hopefully.”

“I can’t believe your toes glow.” She coos. “I’m leaving Joy on the ship if it’s anything other than an exterminate.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Didn’t mean to pull your pigtails, kid.” He says, then belches red and black. Judge stares back up helplessly. “Sorry, Kuva always gives me….well. Kuva.”

After the Worm declared to the system that a Tenno was responsible for the state of the Elder Queen, there was scramble to find just which one was responsible. One Tenno had announced their involvement, declaring themselves the Grineer’s most wanted. Around the same time, another Tenno had also claimed responsibility, and very soon the rumours had gotten so muddled that the Tenno had a system-wide joke about being the Elder Queen’s assailant.

Judge didn’t have the stomach to tell anyone it was Teshin who’d really done the deed. 

Even so, with the Worm Queen on the prowl, he’d elected to leave the Nova Prime he’d piloted while infiltrating the asteroid base at home. He’d landed with a squad, a bright Volt with his Kubrow,  a Rhino adorned with armour and sigils, and what could only be described as a patched together Atlas. Judge recognised the skin. It matched his Mesa.

The Tenno inhabiting the Atlas seemed to have had the same thought, because they’d given his Mesa’s shoulder a friendly punch before following the Volt and Rhino inside the Grineer shipyard. 

Once the life support started dropping, Judge started to notice patches of red streaking through the air. His comm’s crackled to life. 

“ _ Heads up _ ,” the gravelly voice of the Atlas’ voice mod said. “ _ The Worm’s around here somewhere _ .”

The Volt panicked, declaring they weren’t ready to face a Grineer Queen and instead would focus on buying time and collecting life support. The Rhino backed them up.

“ _ I need some Kuva _ ,” The Atlas said, and Judge realised he was talking to him on a private line. How did he know Judge was awake? Was it a guess? “ _ Watch my back for me? _ ” It was a guess.

Mesa salutes, and they split off.

—

Despite himself, Judge catches glimpses of the Tenno behind the Atlas when they knock the guards out and tears the braids off the siphon. They’re a tall mass of blue and gold. On the last braid, Judge opens his comm.

“Hey, uh, you have this handled.” Mesa’s muffled voice mod crackles. “I’m going to find the blast door console so we have a clean break to extraction.”

“Sure thing!” The voice on his comm line is no longer the Atlas, deep and youthful, panting a little, like the Tenno speaking had run a mile.

—

He finds the console for the blast door in a secluded part of the ship and instinctively transfer out of his Mesa to work through the system. There’s an unopened life support capsule on the platform above, but they’re still running on over half. The Rhino and Volt did well.

His Mesa waits at the door, ready to take out intruders. She must only really consider Grineer intruders however, because she doesn’t warn Judge when the Atlas from earlier follows him in. Judge stiffens like a condroc caught in spotlights.

Atlas shakes like he’s laughing, then glows gold. The Tenno steps out. Now that he within range, Judge can see he has udo piercings on his face and ears, scars on his cheek and lip, and darker void scars trailing up the side of his face, peeking out through his dark blue transference suit.

“Hey, handsome,” he drawls, and Judge is still too stiff to be embarrassed. “You sure look nothing like your Mesa.”

When Judge finds his voice again, what he means to say is—anything other than what comes out. “I—I have a—- a partner.”

The Tenno in front of him smirks. “So do I. Doesn’t mean I can’t look. You done with that console yet?”

Judge focuses his attention back to console, even as the other Tenno starts to step closer. “Didn’t mean to pull your pigtails, kid.” He says, then belches red and black smog. Judge stares back up helplessly. “Sorry, Kuva always gives me….well. Kuva.”

“I don’t know anyone who  _ eats _ it out of the air.” Judge says, returning to the console. He gets a faint taste of blood whenever he passes through a cloud of kuva.

“It’s peppery.” The Tenno says, then waits a beat. “What are you doing after this?”

Judge was going to try to see if sleep would take him after he’d finished this mission for Lotus. He and Kore had arranged for relic runs in the next day cycle. “Nothing.” he says, because sleep never comes anyway. That and, he’s never been able to say ‘no’ when someone asks him for help.

“Great! Pair up with me. I’ve got Rivens I need to re-roll.”

“I didn’t even—You got the Kuva by yourself.” Judge protests.

“So? My ‘partner’ is busy today. All she does is frown at me anyway, so you’re already halfway there.”

—

Judge awakens to the sound of his aircraft being boarded. When finally ascends from the ramp leading up to the nav console, she raises a brow at him. “Hello,” she says coolly, waiting for him to stand up next to the console that had been his bed for the past—

“How long was I out?” he asks, as if she would know.

“Probably the five minutes you stopped replying to me and I cut the link to board you.” Ah. So she does know. “Is the sleep debt finally catching up with you?”

Judge rubs his eyes. “I met a tenno who doesn’t think bursa’s are worth paying attention to,” Running with ‘Punk’ was both a thrill and an ordeal. Judge learned that chasing after someone enthusiastically hellbent on causing as much destruction as they can is possibly the most taxing thing one can do. “I don’t know how you babysat me for over a year, Kore.”

“It was only because it was you. I wouldn’t do that for anyone else.” Judge ears heat at that. “How many yogwun do you have right now?”

“I cut the bait last day cycle. Why?”

“I wanted some for my fish tank.”

“Your what?” Judge asks groggily. 

Kore blinks. “Oh, Judge.” she says. “You and Scylla need to have a word. After we go to Cetus.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s too dark to see. He gathers his resolve and whistles again. Something glows to life in front of him, and in the dark, hundreds of eyes appear and still, centred on him. The gold whistles back.

“How many more sharrac do you need?” Judge asks for what feels like 10th time since the night cycle started.

Kore’s reply is the same. “ _ And the cousins, too _ !”

So far, three different groups of tenno had come, greeted them, fished with them, and left again. The Teralyst had wandered away from their fishing site after failing to grab Kore’s attention, three grinneer patrols had gone missing, and the Lotus had stopped asking them for assistance in their area. Kore doesn’t come to Cetus often. It was too busy, too crowded. It chafes against, stifles her, and she’d often tell Judge to go collect his bounty or cut his bait, she’d wait in the Plains.

Judge’s Nova sits on the rock he’s on, watching Kore fish. “I keep getting goopolla.” she says irritably over their comms. “I have cousins and cousins of goopolla.” 

“Why don’t you throw some back?”

“After I put a spear through them, Judge?” She turns to face him, Saryn Prime’s golds glinting in the moonlight in the water. “Like you put a spear through that condroc?”

“I didn’t think I’d actually hit it!!”

A dull shriek catches their attention, echoing from far away. Judge’s Nova scrambles up the rock he’s sitting on to the cliff face for a closer look. It seems like a team has taken down one of the teralysts. He sees it fall in the distance, nothing but glowing blue spots in the black. “Vay Hek’s going to be pissed.”

Saryn lands next to him, and they watch in silence as the lights fade. “How do you fight them?” Kore asks quietly.

“Not easily.” Judge remembers squads upon squads chattering on relays different ways to take down this new foe. “You have to disable their shields, and stop the vombalysts from reaching it, or they’ll restore them.”

“Small window.” Kore says. “Gross.”

“It teleports if it feels threatened.”

“Gross.” she repeats. “How do you take out the shields?”

Judge smiles helplessly. “Void beam.”

“ _ Gross _ .” She pauses. “I don’t want to see Onkko, anyway. I get my dose of crypticness from Teshin.”

“He and Onkko would get along.” Judge agrees.

“Maybe they’re  _ cousins, too. _ ” Kore says dryly. “Come on, I want to see if it leaves a body.” 

—

It doesn’t seem to have left a body. They scan the general vicinity of where it fell and only find some scattered grinneer. “We have time before dawn,” Judge says into the comm., even as the colours of the sky start changing. “Do you want to keep fishing? We can try for charrc eels.”

“I’ll meet you there after I take care of this,” Kore says, and Judge hears gunfire on her end before she cuts. 

Then he hears gunfire again and gets his neutron stars and Tigris out. He starts to follow the nearby noise and sees pockets of spores decorating the cliffside. Kore is nearby. Nova pulls her neutron stars from the void and follows them.

—

Judge stops—The spores are fresher here, but that’s not what caught his eye. There’s a lone kubrow— not one of his or Kore’s, not one he even recognises— pawing at the water in the stream nearby. It yelps after the water shocks it and growls with renewed determination. Without prompt, Judge’s Nova immediately makes a beeline towards it.

Judge hasn’t seen any wild kubrow on the plains, not with the odd energy spikes and presence of eidolons shaking the grounds. He kneels down, beckoning it closer. “Hi, buddy.” he says, Nova’s voice every bit as stellar and bright as the magenta stars circling her. “Where’s your tenno?”

The kubrow, small in stature, yaps at him, then returns to the edge of the water. He whines. Judge peers into the water, where a charc eel is swimming in rapid little circles between the rocks. It’s trapped, but the electricity in the water is making it impossible for the kubrow to grab it. “You want the eel, boy?” The kubrow barks, wagging his stumpy little tail.

Nova hurls the fishing spear into the water and drags the eels out. She holds it in front of the kubrow, who leaps up to snap it out of her fingers. He looks very pleased with himself. “You’re welcome!” Judge says and watches him trot away.

He turns around -- he should catch up with Kore-- and realised the spores have disappeared. He checks his comms, and there’s nothing but static. Either she’s really, really busy or there’s interference on her end. He reminds himself that, with the teralyst down, there’s nothing on the plains that could take her out in her Saryn.

He hears the kubrow yap in the distance. He can feel his Nova itch to follow. There’s nothing and no one on the plains presently that could give Kore trouble, but he know from experience that kubrow manage to get themselves into all sorts of trouble on their own. He follows the barking.

\--

It’s so dark he can barely see past the few feet Nova’s neutron stars have lit up in front of him. He’s starting to wonder if the kubrow had retreated into a den of some kind. He didn’t pass one on the way. Judge whistles into the dead silence. Nothing. Maybe it really was a wild kubrow.

He starts to turn then he hears it. A whistle in the distance.

A million possibilities and outcomes run through Judge’s head, but the ones that stick out are Kore, another tenno, or somehow his void sickness has manifested in the plains of all places. He dismissed the last thought but it doesn’t assuage his panic by much. It’s too dark to see. He gathers his resolve and whistles again.

Something glows to life in front of him, and in the dark, hundreds of eyes appear and still, centred on him. The gold whistles back.

“Oh, fuck-” Judge immediately turns around to run as fast as he can. A sharp bark makes him swerve and he hits the ground hard. A kubrow puts its paws on his chest. It takes a moment for Judge to realise it’s the same kubrow he’d helped catch the charc eel. He yaps.

Judge’s comms crackle to life. “Are you okay?” The voice-- the warframe’s voice-- is hushed, whispery. Almost otherworldly. He looks up at sees an Oberon--a Freyarch--leaning over him. He realises belatedly that the glowing eyes are all kubrow, who had parted to let the Oberon approach him. His steps didn’t make a sound.

Judge feels like he’s interrupted something. A seance, a coronation in the plains, something supernatural. But the Oberon in front of him is just another tenno. There’s a large pile of fish behind him. It doesn’t make the situation any less unnerving.

He extends a hand and Judge hesitates to meet it. The Oberon pulls him up by both his hands and holds them there. “Are you lost?”

“Y-yes--Wait, no,” Judge shakes his head. “I mean-- Have you seen a Saryn around? She’s---I mean, she’s my partner and I was looking for her but I got-- sidetracked.”

“Partner?” The Oberon asks.

“Yes?” Judge replies uneasily. He’s still holding his hands. “She’s, uh, red and gold? Mostly?”

“I see.” He says. “I didn’t know she had partners.”

“You know her?”

“Yes.” He finally lets go of his hands and turns around. The kubrow stand at attention. “I will take you to her.” He turns his head to Judge. “Okay?”

Judge thinks about running, then he takes into account all of the kubrow, including the small on at his shins. If Oberon knows Kore, then it can’t hurt to follow.

\--

Judge feels as if he’s being ushered by the small dispatch of kubrow as they follow his master down the mountainside, back towards where the teralyst had fallen. Oberon is ahead of them, pausing and waiting for his Nova to catch up. He could move at a faster pace, but the kubrow seem to think they’re some sort of entourage. He isn’t brave enough to separate from them.

He opens his comms and still can’t find Kore. He taps into Oberon’s link instead. “Were you in the group who took down the teralyst?” he asks.

Oberon hesitates. “Yes.” he says. “But there was no group.”

Judge almost trips. “You took down a teralyst solo?”

“No.” Oberon says, and stops near the cliff face. “I was support.” Judge catches up to him. “She is there.” He indicates with his head towards a grinneer camp. The spores are everywhere, but Judge can’t see any sign of Kore. He goes to move. Oberon’s hand on his shoulder stops him.

One of the walls burst apart, and a heavy gunner gets flung away, landing in a heap of limbs. Out steps Saryn Prime, a pistol in hand, and something tucked under her arm. Judge opens comms. “Kore!” The Saryn’s head snapped to him and he slides down the cliffside to her. It’s only when he gets close enough to see her he realises that this Saryn isn’t his. That she’s red and gold and pitch black, with a Euphona Prime in her right hand and some salvaged part of the teralyst in the other.

“I’m….sorry,” Judge says. “I thought you were a different Saryn.” He starts to back away when she approaches but hits something behind him. Oberon places his hands gently on his shoulders to keep him from falling. There’s a dead silence in which Judge sees his life flash before his eyes. There’s no way he’s going to survive a clandestine encounter with a wordless pair of tenno who took down a teralyst not a scant half an hour ago. The Saryn tilts her head, and Judge realises the reason they’re completely silent is because they’re talking to each other. Oberon lets go of him.

“I misunderstood.” he says simply.

“You’ll have to excuse Alpha. He’s not a talker.” She sounds exactly like Kore’s Saryn. She stands in front of him, head bowed as if she’s appraising him. “And who do you belong to?”

“I’m looking for my partner.” Judge says helplessly, for what feels like the thousandth time that night. “Look, I just need--” his comms crackle to life.

“ _ Judge, where the hell are you _ ?”

“Kore?”

“ _ Yeah, who else? I caught like 20 charrc eels while you were MIA. Are you lost _ ?”

“No! No...I’m coming to you now.” He switches back to the other Saryn’s line. “I found her. Uh, sorry for bothering you.” She waves her hand dismissively and walks past him to the pack of kubrow congregating behind Oberon. “Thanks for your help,” Judge tells him. 

Oberon-- Alpha-- nods, and Judge leaves as fast as he can. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “All they’re going to do is give you a new sigil, or weapon or something, Judge.” she says. “It’s what Red Veil did with me. I left straight afterwards.” She barely uses the dagger they gave her, anyway. It’s a nice display blade though. It looks good stuck in the back of her Tyl Regor figure. “Should I buy the Irkalla skin?”

“So,”

Judge’s Mesa launches her fully charged battery at a particularly stubborn Ancient. He thought he’d recognised the Atlas he’d flown in with. “Yes?” he answers, without his voice mod.

“What’s your partner like?” He’s run with Punk a few times since their kuva incident, and he’s reliable when he needs to be. 

“Why do you want to know?” Judge asks. Something heavy crashes next to his Mesa; a busted Corrupted MOA. Punk’s Atlas rolls his arm.

“Just curious, darlin’,” he says and hurries on into the next room. “You don’t have to tell me.”

He isn’t sure if they’re friends or not, or if Punk’s just that interpersonal. The next room already has the traps triggered. Evidently, the Excalibur and Nyx Prime who’d come in with them have decided looting was easiest with the whole tower on alert. “She’s very private.” Judge says.

“I get that.” Punk says, “Can you get the turrets? I’m going for Gunner.”

“Sure.” Judge hesitates before asking. “What’s yours like?”

The thing about Mesa is, her shattershield makes turrets trivial. Her machine pistols eat away at armour, and she still has time to reload before her shields give way. The only things that tend to ambush her are high armour enemies like---

Judge slams into a wall, but his shield stays. The Bombard is distracted enough by him that he doesn’t notice the Atlas slam into him. “No melee, huh?”

Corrupted swarm in behind him and Mesa rolls faster than Atlas can put his rock wall up.

The thing about Mesa is that, if you trust her, you don’t need a melee.

Behind his Atlas, Punk whistles. “Nice shooting, pardner.” Mesa puts away her regulators and tips an imaginary hat. Judge is quite certain that she’s one of his quirkier frames. Atlas, however, reciprocates with a curtsy, and they follow the bodies to find the rest of their squad.

Punk breaks the silence. “If yours is private, then mine’s probably Nakak.”

Judge almost slides into a wall. “Your partner’s Nakak?”

“No!” Punk bristles. “She’s---Never mind. She’s not Nakak. Nakak’s never left Cetus.” He turns around to loot a series of lockers. He seems to have stopped talking for the moment, so Judge checks the containers lined up against the wall. The silence stretches on a little too long.

Judge isn’t sure they’re friends. He’s certain Kore wouldn’t want anyone knowing her. At least, not knowing her the way Judge does. He clears his throat. “We fight well together. She does most of the fighting. She--,” How does he describe Kore to someone she’s never met, in a way that respects her privacy? She hates being vulnerable, and knowing is a type of vulnerability she seldom allows herself. He’s an exception, to be able to make a decision like this. He marvels at that. He’s also scared shitless of that realisation.

“She’s a force of nature.” is what he settles on.

“How did you guys meet?” Punk asks.

Judge feels a familiar warmth in his chest. “We’ve always known each other.” he says. “Or--It feels that way.” He wonders how much he can touch on. How much either of them know. Part of him wants to keep everything to himself, and that feels selfish in some way. The rest of him, well. “I knew her, before.” He lets it hang. He doesn’t want to talk about it, or think about it too long. Most tenno don’t. It makes the air too heavy sometimes, whether with void static and high somatic output due to stress, or something else entirely. Possibly also due to stress.

It’s inconsequential however, as Punk seems temporarily absent. “Sounds nice.” he says, strangely toneless. “Y’all lovebirds ever fight?”

Judge remembers Ordan Karris. He remembers finding the Grinneer Queen’s fortress perched on an asteroid. He remembers boarding Kore’s ship for the first time. “Yes.” he says. “I hate when we do."

“Yeah.” Punk says wistfully. “It fuckin’ sucks.”

Judge puts two and two together a bit too late. “Uh-” He starts, but Punk speaks over him, through his Atlas.

“Where the hell are you two? We found the argon, no thanks to your dumb asses setting off all the fuckin’ lasers.” The comm crackles as the other two members of their squad protest.

Judge wonders if there was a better way to play that out.

\--

On one hand, that skin would look excellent on her current Nekros colours. On the other hand, she put that frame in storage when it didn’t measure up to needs when she actually on the field. Kore glares at her market screen. She has two hours left before her token expires, and she still isn’t certain the skin is worth it. 

She’s come to almost dread these gifts that the Lotus supplies her Tenno with. There’s nothing worse than getting a resource booster after an 18 hour mission. She absently taps the Oberon noggle she keeps under her market desk with her toe. Last time she got a token from the Lotus, she’d spent the day on her ship pacing.

Right now, Judge seems to have that covered. She sighs. “Are you going help me with this or not?”

He stops, bottom lip torn to shreds because he’s a fool who doesn’t seem to understand that biting your lip? Tears it. He blinks twice before rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry, Kore,” he says. “I’m just--nervous.”

Kore knows. She can feel the static build up off him and charge the air around them. She slumps back onto her desk. “All they’re going to do is give you a new sigil, or weapon or something, Judge.” she says. “It’s what Red Veil did with me. I left straight afterwards.” She barely uses the dagger they gave her, anyway. It’s a nice display blade though. It looks good stuck in the back of her Tyl Regor figure. “Should I buy the Irkalla skin?” she asks.

“I can buy it for you.” Judge says, absently rubbing at his bottom lip.

“I have a token, Judge. Were you even listening?” 

“Yes.” he lies. “No,” he confesses. “What were you saying?”

She’s getting nowhere, and the helpless look on his face is making her feel…punchy. She’s not sure how to describe it. “What are they promoting you to?”

He hesitates. “Maxim.” he hesitates because he knows how dumb it sounds.

“Maxim Hades sounds stupider than Crusader Hades.” she says.

“I don’t get to pick what call me,” he protests. “Besides, nothing is going to sound as good as ‘The Exalted Persephone.’”

She concedes that it is a favourable title. More favourable than ‘Maxim,’ at any rate. “Do you want me to come with you?” 

Kore knows in her heart of hearts that he wants to say yes. She knows in her soul that all he wants is to hold her hand through whatever comes next, no matter how big or small the situation. She also knows that’s not what he needs. “I don’t think they’ll be forthcoming with Red Veil attending an ascension ceremony.” He says carefully, and returns to pacing a circle into the floor of her orbiter. “What warframe should I take? I know Excalibur’s one of their preferred frames. I don’t even know what to call the---the leader? The head Arbiter?” He stops. “What do you call the Red Veil representative?”

“I don’t.” Kore says. “I give him my insignias and leave.  _ The fire spreads _ .”

Judge starts to pace again. “I’ve met Palladino, I’ve done stuff for Cressa Tal,  _ and _ I’ve worked with Suda. I don’t know a thing about the leaders of the Arbiters.”

“Some detective.” Kore says.

“I don’t even know who runs them.” He’s back to biting his lip and muttering to himself again, and Kore’s no closer to a decision on the Nekros skin. Joy trots up the ramp, effectively cutting into Judge’s pacing room. “Hello, Joy.” he says. “How are you.” 

Joy ignores him and hops up onto the market console to greet her master. Kore stokes her head. “Does it really matter who runs them?”

“I have a database!!” He stops. “I’ve been climbing their ranks for years and I know...nothing about them.”

“I didn’t know about Palladino’s weird Tenno cult.” Kore points out. “I don’t really care either. You know why? Because all we do is wear some sigils and collect their dumbass insignias. You’re nervous for no reason.” She notices her kavat’s fur standing at odd angles, then puts a hand in her own hair. “Judge, you’re staticking the air again.”

“Excuse the interruption, Operator-” Ordis’ voice startles Judge out of his rambling. “Cephalon Scylla has an urgent message for Tenno Hades. His -- _ feline monster _ \---kavat has managed to break a fish-tank in his personal quarters---”


	6. Chapter 6

The Arbiters’ Triunal shouldn’t be nearly as intimidating as it is. He’s walked in countless times to turn in medallions and exchange standing for relics. He and Kore had separated to go to their respective syndicates. The doors open and out walks a Saryn, terribly reminiscent of Kore’s Saryn. Judge recognises her. It seems she recognises him, too.

“You’re the Nova we met on the plains.” She says.

“Yes,” Judge says. “I--Uh, how are you?”

She brushes away his awkwardness. “I’m very good.” she says. “Are you who they're waiting for in there?”

Judge rushes to get his static under control. “I guess so? I’m--being promoted.”

“Ah.” she waits a beat. “Don’t be nervous.”

A nearby operative yelps. Are all Saryns psychic? Does Kore know this Saryn?? Do all Saryns know each other?? Judge hears another operative rush over to ask what happened. Maybe this Saryn is part of Kore’s clan of silent tenno. Is that how she knows he’s nervous?

“It’s practically rolling off you, kid.” she informs him, jerking her head towards where the operative is complaining about being suddenly shocked somehow. She starts to leave at a leisurely pace. “Congratulations on the rank up. I might see you on the field some time, Maxim.”

It doesn’t sound nearly as stupid coming from her.

\--

Kore has an hour left to redeem her token, and she’s still not certain about the skin. She wants it, sure, but is it worth spending platinum on when she never uses her Nekros? Judge seems to be taking his time with the Arbiters, so she stops into Steel Meridian to turn in what insignias she has. She hopes Clem is at Darvo’s today. She can’t stand the crowd that forms around him when he’s around.

She flares up when someone walks straight into her, ready to hiss, then stops short when she realises she recognises the Ember in front of her. She starts to turn when they tilt their head, as if trying to place where they know her from.

“Hey!” they call out, chasing after her. “Persephone!! How’ve you been, girl?”

“I don’t know you.” She says through gritted teeth. She knew she should have waited on the ship. How many cycles had she spent avoiding this relay?

“Aww, darlin’, don’t be shy. I’ve hit up strangers for garbage runs too!” He quickens his pace to keep up with her. “Kavats aren’t easy to breed. You get yours yet?”

A part of Kore wants to declare she didn’t need his help for her alloy plate ‘garbage’ runs, that she has two kavat now, thanks to her tunnel vision, and that its not her fault that his frequency is one number off from Judge’s, and she was very, very sleep deprived because her argon was about to expire. Instead, she gives him a curt, “Yes. Don’t follow me.”

That stops him where he’s standing, Ember rubbing her neck sheepishly. “Alrighty, then. See ya,”

She gets the Nekros skin blueprint the second she hits her ship. She deserves it after that painful interaction.

\--

Ordis informs her that her line is picking up a signal as she's testing colours out on her Irkalla skin. It's about as stylish as it looked in the previews. She answers her call. 

"Hey, I thought you had stuff to do at the Meridian garrison?" Judge's voices sounds a little breathless.

"I bought the Nekros skin," Kore says. "How did it go?"

"Can I come in?" He sounds excited, and Kore sighs thinking of the goofy, toothy smile he gets on his face sometimes. 

Moments laters, she's hailing his ship and he appears in front of her, wearing what she figures was his prize.

"What do you think?" he says, turning his Inaros around to give her a better look.

"Bad colours." she says.

"It's the default," he protests. "And it's a sword! I thought you'd like it."

She shrugs. "I can make it work. How was the ceremony?"

Judge practically falls out of his Inaros, already chattering about the triunal, the new rank responsibilities, the new mods--all while grinning like a fool. "I met a Maxim," he says.

"Still sounds dumb." 

"She told me she'll 'see me out there,' but she didn't leave any contact information."

"That usually means they don't want to see you," she says bluntly. She's a lot more upfront about not wanting to mentor--or even work with-other people.

"Probably." Judge says. "She was the Saryn I met before, on Earth remember?"

"It's not a big galaxy, Judge." Kore mutters, thinking of the Ember she'd left behind on the relay. "You're going to run into people you know, whether you like it or not. I'm thinking either red or black for the accents. What do you think?"


End file.
